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Im reaching out today as a fellow educator and historian, and as Executive Director of the National Council for History Education, to affirm your professionalism and the importance of your role as history educators. As you know, history is not the past its the study of the past. Its not for us to admire from a distance.
Teaching with PrimarySources in Social Studies Feb. 25, 2025 Studies Weekly Its often difficult to connect students to the real-world, real-time applications of events from history and the real people who lived them. The primarysource. We let the people of history tell their own story.
The archive includes primarysources such as images, cartoons, and documents. The website gives you an overview of each issue along with a chart of primarysources to help students come to a conclusion. Here is a cool new online archive of 20th-century resources surrounding Winston Churchill.
I often recommend the use of this tool in History as a way to explore primarysourcedocuments. Suppose you want to develop a literacy lesson for your learners. ThingLink could be used to curate content (text, video, images). The link to the form could even be included in the Thinkglink.
At NCHE conferences , for example, a glance at the program reveals that most sessions focus on an important moment or a major problem in history and offer a strategy to present it in a new way. This writing tends to be engaging, brief, and pointed, relating history to current concerns, and spanning political perspectives.
As Publications Manager at Teaching American History , I frequently hear the following from our teacher partners: I love teaching with primarysources! But I feel overwhelmed when I look all the documents. My district has dropped our textbook and we are switching to primarysources. Your website is great!
One of the biggest challenges in history education is engaging students in meaningful analysis while encouraging collaboration and critical thinking. Image & Source Analysis (8 Parts) A picture is worth a thousand wordsbut only if students know how to analyze it! Big Idea: What lasting impact did this have on history?
It’s the hardest primarysource I teach and I’m sure many of you feel the same. Let’s be honest, it’s a document from the 1700s. If you are new to Active History Teacher, then let me tell you. appeared first on Active History Teacher. Every year I teach the Constitution I want to try something new.
You Have PrimarySources in Your Family May 10, 2024 • By Studies Weekly Primarysources transport students through history. Primarysources are excellent tools to help students learn how to think like historians. Students should know that their family records are also primarysources!
First, select a primarysource for students to interpret via the Retell in Rhyme EduProtocol. Then, ask Google Bard or Chat GPT to retell the main ideas of the document in 10 rhyming couplets so an 8th grader will understand it. I borrowed this excerpt from my friend, Dr. Mark Jarrett’s work with primarysources.
I often use class competition games in my US History classroom – you could say it is part of my classroom culture. Here are a few classroom competition games I use with students – all of which are great for US History EOC Review and STAAR Review! I have done-for-you timeline races for early US History and Modern US History.
The ASHP staff knows that such changes dont emerge overnight; as we look backward and ahead, we remain committed to making our work as history educators help generate greater understanding of the current historical moment. This week, researcher Carli Snyder shares a primarysource.
However, studies show that exposure to content-rich subjects like history, geography, and science strengthens reading comprehension, vocabulary, and critical thinking skillsessential components of long-term literacy success.
It’s been a huge time saver, especially since it allowed me to focus more on the classroom and less on the stress of documenting every detail. This part helped students connect primarysource analysis to the broader motivations for European exploration, further deepening their historical thinking skills.
Patty Topliffe, who teaches social studies at Woodstock High School in Vermont, said teaching vocabulary and other literacy skills to her students helps them understand primarysourcedocuments. Credit: Image provided by Patty Topliffe Poor reading skills are a nationwide issue.
Simplifying PrimarySources with AI My goal was to simplify the lesson while still helping students build confidence and learn. The revised documents were a mix of Jamestown and Plymouth hardships and survival stories. They worked in pairs, reading the sources and answering questions.
Teaching American History provides various free resources for American history and government teachers, including our popular seminars , multi-day seminars , and extensive database of original sourcedocuments. Still, to paraphrase a famous campaign slogan from the 1990s, for TAH, it’s the documents, stupid!
The Beginnings of Hysteria So, how did this terrifying time in history begin? Court documents do not explain the charges against him, but in a document dated prior to the accusation, Thomas Gage said that Dr. Toothaker saw two children who were ill and exhibiting “unwanted fits.” Their local doctor was no help.
Staff and faculty members at Teaching American History have heard from our teacher partners that they want nonpartisan election resources that elevate classroom discourse beyond political bickering and horse race coverage. This concise history is perhaps the best account we have of the election of 1800.
As a history teacher with a background in museum work, my biggest goal is for my students to learn to curate their knowledge to be able to share it with others. This involves so many of those important historical thinking skills : making connections, periodization, analyzing sources, and crafting arguments. It is free!)
Nathan McAlister is the Humanities Program Manager – History, Government, and Social Studies with the Kansas State Department of Education. In 2010, Nathan was named Kansas and National History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History. My goal, for this blog post is twofold.
It also offers a YouTube channel on which historians discuss their work , making history come alive for contemporary youth. The UC Davis California History Social Science Project frames current events within their historical context , connecting students’ present to the past. Washington University in St. government as well.
And that means the pinnacle of TAH’s professional development for teachers has arrived as well: our Master of Arts in American History and Government (MAHG) program at Ashland University in Ashland, OH. The four questions cover a variety of topics, eras, or themes in American history and government. For what purpose was it written?
In the next few days, those who have completed all coursework for the Master of Arts in American History and Government (MAHG) program may begin writing their qualifying exams, so as to graduate with their degrees this December. Online coursework during the school year entailed many afterwork hours reading the assigned primarydocuments.
In July 2022, ASHP/CML hosted the first LGBTQ+ Histories of the United States summer institute for k-12 teachers. Three educators describe specific materials and topics that were presented during the 2022 Summer Institute, LGBTQ+ Histories of the United States, which they have incorporated into their own teaching.
In the classroom, educators can explore a variety of Constitutional resources with learners by reading primarysources, reviewing changes to the Constitution throughout American History, and analyzing historical arguments relating to the founding of the United States and the Constitution today. Since its ratification, the U.S.
That rubric defined “rigor” as student engagement with primarysource texts and artifacts. Question Two) — is most appropriately addressed by interpreting primarysources. THE ERROR BEHIND “DOCUMENT ANALYSIS” The fact is, even people who should really know better often make the same mistake. Plan it out.
One-Day seminars are the easiest way to engage with Teaching American History in person. For a few hours, teachers can dive into the content of primarysourcedocuments through a discussion with colleagues facilitated by a scholar. The post Preparing for a One Day Seminar appeared first on Teaching American History.
These activities include: Sourcingdocuments Drag & drop timelines Analyzing primary and secondary sources Interpreting and inserting images Notetaking Comparing and contrasting topics 4. Refreshed Themes - each digital notebook set now has its own theme to match the unit.
This week’s post comes from Thomas Fulbright, current KCSS president and history teacher at Hope Street Academy, a public charter school in Topeka since 2008. Thomas intends “to spend my entire life convincing them how exciting and important history is.” His bio picture is daughter Claire and Thomas meeting President Lincoln.
Edited by Jeremy Bailey and intended as a secondary and post-secondary document reader, American Presidency contains 39 introduced and edited primarysources, discussion questions, and a thematic table of contents. The post Resources for Teaching the Presidential Election appeared first on Teaching American History.
For US History, that can be reading (or even listening to) this short article on the stock market crash of 1929 and then organizing the important parts of the article into their interactive notebook: This allows students to be hands on with their learning and easily combine a digital resource with a paper/pencil activity.
Sean Brennan Brennan, a frequent participant in Teaching American History seminars , has long promoted civic education and civil cooperation at the local and state level. As a teacher, he appreciated Teaching American History’s free seminars featuring scholar-led discussion of primarydocuments.
He did, and Livingston soon found herself sitting in an introductory college course in US history. The next semester, she took two more US history classes, then realized she’d found her major. The next school year, she was asked to teach not only the regular-level geography course but also AP Human Geography and World History.
So when one student says she plans to study the Bermuda Triangle, the professor recommends that she ask a librarian—maybe the one who talked to the class earlier in the semester—to help her curate a reading list of secondary sources. As for primarysources, the professor suggests looking for a map, or a ship’s record, or a diary entry.
This is indeed a worthy goal: we want history and social studies classrooms to be active places where students are doing the intellectual work of our discipline, and often that work is best done in conversation with peers or with a teacher or both. In the earlier grades we are often looking at a pattern of behavior or an artifact.
Primarydocuments give us unexpected perspectives on history. Landen Schmeichel sees this often when using documents in his Advanced Placement US History course at Legacy High School in Bismarck, North Dakota. Liberty and Equality: Ideas That Shaped America Primarydocuments prompt reflection on powerful ideas.
We even tied in local history by exploring Clermont Countys own Gold Rush in 1868. Each of these protocols ensured that students werent just memorizing factsthey were actively engaging, thinking, and making connections across history. How did tensions between Texas and Mexico mirror other revolutions in history? and Mexico.
The right is doing all they can to suppress the teaching of history, but they are not succeeding. In the follow-up lesson, students explore primarysources that reveal key outcomes of the Reconstruction era. How do we know? Read the list and donate so that we can provide more teachers with these lessons in 2025. government.
Students first learn about Mississippi history in fourth grade, and that’s the first time they are supposed to delve deeply into the history of the movement to end racial segregation and discrimination. The Civil Rights Movement is a case history of what it means to be American, and what it means to exercise constitutional rights.”.
History students. The next day, we dove into the document analysis activity compiled by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. After going over key terms and background information (as suggested by Wolfe-Rocca in the PDF version of the activity), I arranged my students in groups of four and they investigated six of the included documents.
The right is doing all they can to suppress the teaching of history, but they are not succeeding. Mexico War: “We Take Nothing by Conquest, Thank God” Lesson by Bill Bigelow and student reading by Howard Zinn This interactive activity introduces students to the history and often untold story of the U.S.-Mexico How do we know?
Tim Matthews, a middle school history teacher outside Boston, uses iCivics games to teach the Constitution, which his class calls “the rulebook.” Last fall, the folks at iCivics anticipated a 20 to 30 percent bump in game plays, in line with what happened in the election year of 2012. Many of these issues have been around for decades.
If you're a US History teacher looking for PDF worksheets for your high school or middle school classroom, I have tons to share, including this 30+ page packet of free engaging assignments you can download and start using right away. Each US History unit also include thorough 9-page worksheets packets for every unit in the curriculum.
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